Explanation:
Ghostly apparitions of two fundamental planes
in planet Earth's sky span this October all-sky view.
The scene was captured from a
lakeside campsite
under dark skies in northern Maine, USA.
In it, the plane of our
Milky Way Galaxy arcs above
faint airglow along the horizon.
Zodiacal light,
a band of dust scattering sunlight along the solar system's
ecliptic plane,
stretches almost horizontally
across the wide field and intersects the Milky way
near a point marked by bright planet Jupiter.
Right of Jupiter, past the
Pleiades star cluster,
is the brightening of the Zodiacal band known as the
Gegenschein,
also visible to the eye on that dark night.
Begirt with many a blazing star
and rising above the distant mountains,
Orion the hunter is
reflected in the lake's calm waters.